He bowled Mark Boucher, had AB de Villiers caught by wicket-keeper Brendon McCullum sprinting back to the boundary, and Paul Harris then went slashing behind.
Ramdin had hit one boundary before playing back to Muralitharan and being hit in front of off-stump - the fifth man in the innings to fall foul of the lbw rule.
Gambhir (44) twice edged Shoaib - noticeably overweight in his second match back after injury problems and a 13-game ban - between keeper and slip to the boundary early in his innings.
But when it came to chasing down the runs, Haddin (39 in an opening stand of 110 with Watson) and Michael Clarke, who made a boundary-free 36 in another big stand worth 107, could afford to take a back seat as Watson coped with tiredness and cramp to smash 12 fours and four sixes under the floodlights.